


lavender days

by cosmicwarden (necrotype)



Series: oh my heart [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Everyone Is Gay, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 05:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11730816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/necrotype/pseuds/cosmicwarden
Summary: Snippets from the life of Madara, the Hokage's girlfriend and Konoha's resident useless lesbian (post-heartlines)





	lavender days

**Author's Note:**

> context: hashirama, madara, and tobirama are women (hashirama is trans). izuna is still alive. everyone is really fucking gay. it's not very good, but it is very gay, so there's that.
> 
> there's some brief self-harm due to dysphoria, but it's pretty mild.

It rained often during the colder months in Konoha. Not that Fire Country ever truly became cold, not like their northern neighbors, but the rain made the air chillier, and everyone crowded into the wooden buildings while drops made soft music on the rooftops.

Most of the buildings seemed to be food stands. After all, mercenaries turned village ninja couldn’t quite make the transition to successful farmers, and even Hashirama, for all her incredible plant jutsu, couldn’t make crops grow in poorly made fields. Food was an unfortunately expensive import from their allies and the surrounding farmers, but the spring would bring new civilians who could tend fields and wanted the protection of living in a ninja village.

For now, Madara ate in the little food shops scattered across the village more often than not, and Izuna in particular loved to drag her along to a little ramen stand on the edge of the village, near the cliff and the forest, especially when rain started up in the early afternoons.

“Can you believe the elders want to marry me off?” Izuna whined, waving his chopsticks around in one hand and his spoon in the other. Drops of broth dripped onto the counter, but Izuna didn’t seem to notice.

“It’s a shock, really,” Madara said, patronizing in the way that always made her brother huff in annoyance.

“I don’t even think they care about me having children,” he continued, ignoring her except for the small frown he shot at her. “I’m sure they’d love our particular family line to end with us, after all the trouble we’ve been.” He puffed up, putting on the stiff air of their elders. “It’s just so—unseemly for the brother of our esteemed clan head to be unmarried.”

Madara snorted gracelessly and, instead of offering a response, began to chew slowly on the fried tofu covering the dregs of noodles and egg left in her bowl.

He fixed her with a baleful stare. “Yes, yes, I know you had to deal with it too.” He slurped up another mouthful of food, and continued, before he had finished swallowing entirely, “But I mean, you’re married to the Hokage! Isn’t that good enough for them?”

“I’m not married,” Madara pointed out. Her voice sounded more plaintive than anything, to her complete dismay, and she coughed lightly to cover it up. She would rather burn down the forest around them than admit to him how much she wanted to marry Hashirama, but he likely already knew; Madara was never very subtle in praising her rival when they were growing up, and certainly she wasn’t any more subtle now.

Izuna sighed dramatically, sounding so much like Hashirama that Madara quirked an eyebrow. “You might as well be, with how you act around her. It’s so domestic, sister.” He glanced at her sidelong and rolled his eyes. “Oh, stop blushing.”

“I’m not!” Her cheeks felt horribly warm, though. Madara reached over with a free hand and tugged sharply on Izuna’s ponytail, and he let out a high-pitched yelp.

“You know, I hate you tremendously,” Izuna grumbled, leaning further away from her, until he was bent at the side and trying to scoop up noodles at a bad angle. “And I’m just saying that not all of us can meet the love of our life by a river.”

“Spend more time by the river, then,” Madara said drily. A warm smile made its way onto her face, and she bumped Izuna’s shoulder affectionately, perhaps a little harder than necessary, based on the way he swayed in his seat. “Maybe you’ll run into that Uzumaki who followed you around like a lost puppy, desperate for love?”

Izuna scowled. “He wasn’t desperate for love, and he went back to Whirpool in any case.” He poked at the vegetables in his bowl. “The elders suggested someone from the Nara clan.”

“Oh?” Madara finished off the lukewarm broth in her bowl, and wiped at her mouth messily with her sleeve. “They’re a decent clan.”

“I don’t even like deer,” Izuna mourned lowly, and then he started to laugh, bright and far too loud for the small stand. “Wait, a decent clan? That’s such high praise, coming from you, sister!”

Izuna’s laughter was contagious, and Madara found herself joining in, though it was soft and almost drowned out by the rain outside. “Their medicinal skills are famous across Fire Country, and important to helping the village prosper, or so Hashirama insists,” she said after a moment, with a slight shrug. “They’re not the worst clan, I suppose.”

“How kind,” Izuna drawled, with a wide grin that stretched across his face and put little dimples into his cheeks.

Madara hummed in the back of her throat, and poked him with her dirty chopsticks until he waved her off and went back to eating.

There was a long pause between them as Izuna finished scarfing down his noodles and Madara watched the bustle behind the counter with faint interest, and rain started to pick up and drop loudly on the roof in the silence.

“I guess I should go, then, and mingle with some Nara,” Izuna said, glancing over his shoulder at the overcast sky behind them. He turned back to Madara, and then added breezily, “Say hello to your wife for me.”

Izuna leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, affectionate and familiar, and she half-heartedly shoved him away, off his stool and out into the rain as he screeched indignantly.

* * *

The best mornings were, by far in Madara’s opinion, the ones where they lounged around Hashirama’s house without village obligations breathing down their necks. As much as she loved the village they created together, the culmination of years spent fighting tooth and nail for peace, she didn’t particularly enjoy meeting with daimyo’s wife, or uncle, or cousin, or some other influential person who felt the need to speak with the Hokage and her advisors over some trivial matter.

And even though she did enjoy her runs around the village—like a guard dog, Izuna told her, a comparison she found almost funny—Madara could spend the rest of her days happy just sitting and talking with Hashirama about nothing important at all.

Besides, there was something so breathtaking about the way Hashirama brightened up, like she was lit up from the inside with sunshine, when Madara asked her about the plants which filled up her home in pottery sculpted by different villagers.

“Grown or picked?” Madara asked, gesturing at the flowers on the table. The vase they sat in was cracked, just above the water level so nothing spilled out, and the glazing was marred, like it was heated by a fire jutsu instead of a kiln. Uchiha-made, if Madara had to hazard a guess, which made her feel a strange, misplaced sense of pride.

Hashirama glanced over her shoulder briefly, then looked back to the dishes she was washing in a shallow basin. Leftover plates from the night before, unwashed in the sink because they had stumbled to bed after eating, too tired to bother with them and fully aware that the morning was free to them.

“Grown this morning. They’re out of season, but I wanted some anyways. I’ve always liked lavender.” She smiled softly. “I like the smell.”

“Hm,” Madara hummed, smirking. She ran a finger along one of the bright petals, and it thrummed with Hashirama’s chakra, deep and vibrant and more alive than any other chakra she had felt, as familiar as her own. “I figured you made them. They’re uglier than real ones.”

Hashirama squawked indignantly, and she flung water at the table with a soapy hand. Madara stayed still, letting the water splash onto her face with a low laugh.

“A misuse of jutsu, certainly,” she continued as she sat at the table, turning the chair so she was angled toward Hashirama. It was difficult to keep the smile off her face when she looked at Hashirama, and she never bothered trying when it was only the two of them. She rested her head on a palm, letting some tenderness bleed into her expression so Hashirama could see it.

“You light fires constantly,” Hashirama whined. She slumped backwards, tilting her head to look at Madara with exaggerated hurt. She kept her hands in the sink, Madara noticed with amusement, at least mindful enough to keep more water from spilling onto the floor while she sulked. “Haven’t you almost burned the village down? More than once?”

“Well, our Hokage decided to make sure the entire village was incredibly flammable,” Madara snapped, knee-jerk, because she was raised without tact. Then, with more of a teasing note in her voice, “Anyways, my fire jutsu are beautiful. Unlike these.” Madara motioned at the lavender again, and shrugged one shoulder for effect.

Hashirama wiggled her eyebrows and winked, gloomy mood suddenly evaporated. It was uncoordinated, so she blinked more than winked, but Madara felt a swell of affection all the same. “Not as much as you, of course.”

Madara frowned, even as warmth settled into her bones. Only Hashirama could say something so genuine and heartfelt, and still she didn’t want to run away. Even so, she squirmed in her seat and looked away as her ears tingled with heat. “We’re done talking now.”

“Oh, come on! Let me compliment you, for once,” Hashirama laughed, finally returning to the dishes. The clatter of ceramics knocking together almost drowned her out as she continued, “You’re so grumpy, you know.”

Madara’s fingers drummed on the tabletop. Her face still felt overly warm. “You’re lucky I love you, or else I’d have to burn your house down,” she said after a long pause, grinning despite herself, bubbly in the most absurd way.

Sighing loudly, Hashirama whirled around and stalked over to the table, dripping large drops of water along the way, and placed her soapy hands on either side of Madara’s face. 

“I love you, too,” she said, seriously, as if Madara wasn’t trying desperately to lean away and get the spuds off of her skin, and then she spun on her heel again back to the remaining bowls. Hashirama wrinkled her nose and sniffed loudly, with a ghost of a smile on her lips. “Even when you threaten to burn my house down.”

* * *

The mission should have been easy. It was only a diplomatic one, a brief visit to the new neighboring village in Suna, to see the Kazekage and discuss the possibility of an alliance with Konoha.

Hashirama at least had the sense to send Mito along with Madara on the trip. Of the two of them, Mito had a head for politics, and she could talk anyone into a corner to agree with her, while Madara felt like she was completely out of place without her armor and only a few papers in her hand, too tense to think straight for more than a few seconds at a time.

In hindsight, Madara supposed she should have seen the attack coming on their way back home, under the canopy of the familiar trees in Fire Country. At some point, her luck was bound to run out, and she and Mito had gone on quite a few diplomatic missions over the last few months without incident.

The shinobi that slipped out of the surrounding forest had no forehead protectors. Leftover mercenaries, maybe, unwilling to join the new villages springing up across the five countries and in desperate need for money since hiring became scarcer. They were dealt with easily enough.

“Just some bruised ribs,” Madara said shortly, when it was all said and done, and remnants of smoke spilled out of her mouth. She breathed heavily through her nose, still worked up from the adrenaline.

Her voice was faintly wheezy, and she grimaced at the sound of it. The kick had taken her by surprise. Must not be getting enough sleep, she thought, absurdly, and her face morphed into a scowl.

Truthfully, Madara couldn’t say that she was upset about the ambush. Fighting cleared her head in a way that very little else did, leaving her calm and settled, and it was especially gratifying after muddling her way through forced diplomacy that made her feel foolish more than accomplished. Even if she got herself injured, as if she hadn’t been one of the most feared mercenaries for most of her life.

“My healing is rudimentary compared to Hashirama’s skills, but I can help,” Mito said, placating, like Madara was a wild animal trapped in a corner. It wasn’t a poor analogy, since Madara was actively trying to inch away from her outstretched hand, coated in a heavy green chakra.

Even in their fight, Mito had looked composed and polished, tranquil like the calm waters around her homeland. It usually put Madara on edge, to be around someone who had only ever known peace and hid her emotions so well, but when she fought, Mito’s emotions were closer to the surface than ever, thrumming right under the skin.

Mito was—all right, which was something Madara begrudgingly admitted. She was clever and unsuspectingly dangerous, and she was heartless and blunt in the sort of way Madara could appreciate. That didn’t mean that Madara wanted to speak to her very often, however.

“I’m fine,” Madara snapped, through clenched teeth, but Mito had an implacable look in her eyes that made her stay still and lift up her shirt to reveal the massive bruise on her side.

It was mottled dark red and blue, and Madara sucked in a pained hiss of air as Mito gently pressed the palm of her hand to it. “You’ve had worse,” Mito pointed out at her wince of pain, quietly amused. Tendrils of her chakra wove across Madara’s skin and sank below the surface, soothing like a balm.

Madara looked away and focused on the branches above them instead of returning Mito’s searching eyes. “I’m aware.” She could feel Mito’s small smile on her, and she shifted, a rising annoyance in her chest.

“You don’t have to like me,” Mito said. “But you could try sitting still so I can do this properly.”

She sounded like she was stifling a laugh, rather than being upset or annoyed. Madara couldn’t think of anything even remotely polite to say, so she made a noncommittal grunt instead, and Mito chuckled under her breath.

To her credit, Mito her pulled hand away quickly enough, dropping the edge of her shirt so that it covered the notably less blue bruise, so Madara couldn’t be too upset. Her next breath was easy, and her ribs only ached slightly as her lungs expanded.

Awkwardly, after a moment of quiet between them, Madara stiffly said, “Thank you.” Both Izuna and Hashirama would want her to be nice, so she would try it, at least for a little bit.

“Don’t bother,” Mito laughed. “You sound like you’re about to grind your teeth to dust,” and Madara decided that she liked Mito a little more than before.

* * *

The Hokage’s office was surprisingly uncomfortable, considering that it was the most important place in Konoha. A consequence of everything being made from wood jutsu, Madara reasoned, but the chairs seemed particularly awful after hours of sitting on them, and Madara felt like her spine might snap from being so stiff and sore.

It would probably help to take her armor off, but at this point, Madara felt committed, and she didn’t want to strip down to the dark robes she wore underneath much, either.

“What do you think about this?” Hashirama asked, waving a slip of paper covered in dark ink around. She sounded perfectly pleasant and at ease. Madara wondered, not for the first time, if Hashirama had made her own chair more comfortable than the other ones in the room.

They had been working for hours at this point, and the room was lit only by a few candles scattered around. Madara’s eyes hurt more than usual from the strain of reading in dim lighting; her mangekyo, even when it wasn’t activated, didn’t make it any easier.

“I can’t read it from here,” Madara said honestly, squinting at the paper. “Is that the one about Iwa’s proposed relations?”

Hashirama made a face in her general direction, a cross between annoyed and concerned, but she didn’t meet Madara’s eyes, instead looking just to the left of her. “Your eyesight is getting worse,” she said, and now she sounded pained and upset. “There must be something else we can do—” 

“No,” Madara said, sharply. “We both know how to fix my eyesight, and we’re not talking about it.” She sighed and ran a hand through her messy hair, a nervous habit she never quite got rid of. “Just—what is that about? I’m sure I read it earlier.”

Hashirama shifted, and she fixed her with an inscrutable stare that made Madara’s skin prickle uncomfortably. “No, it’s not the Iwa one. It’s about the new mission system,” she said after a long pause. “Izuna and Tobirama have been working on it.”

“Oh, that one.” Madara shifted the piles of papers in front of her until she found of her own copy of it. The ink was smudged slightly, but she read through it quickly all the same. “It’s good. Needs some refining, but they’ve got the right idea, I think.”

Hashirama nodded. “The academy system should feed into it, but not until everyone is old enough. Children can stick to easy missions around the village.” She grinned, and it smoothed away all the worry from her face. “Just like we pictured it would be,” she added, fond.

“I don’t think I agreed to watch over children personally,” Madara retorted, but amusement curled in her voice without a bite. “Sounds like it’s something you would like.”

“As the Hokage, I think I’m too busy for that,” Hashirama started. Her voice cracked halfway through the sentence, and she laughed her way to the end of it. “You have a point, though. I’ll just teach your students, since you’ll be awful at it, anyways.”

Madara laughed, and it was so sudden that it sounded like it was punched out of her. “I—can’t argue with that,” she said, and then she looked back at the stack of sheets in front of her, and picked up a brush to make some notes.

They kept working, going through all of the papers for that day and some for the next, until Madara’s eyes started to burn and she had to keep catching herself from falling asleep. On the other side of the table, Hashirama stretched languidly, yawning lightly, and she stood up in a fluid motion, arms still pulled up above her head. Madara loved her hands; they were strong, rough like a ninja’s but very gentle.

Hashirama slowly walked over, until her knees bumped against Madara’s, in her incredibly uncomfortable chair. She leaned on the edge of the table, hands intertwined in front of her, and she smiled down at Madara, bright and wide and with too many teeth. Madara reflexively smiled back, heart fluttering and cheeks hurting, because she only ever smiled with her brother and Hashirama.

She probably looked like a complete fool, with the way she was blinking owlishly up at Hashirama. But she couldn’t help it, really. When Hashirama looked at Madara, it was like the slow warmth of the sun spilling onto her in the afternoon, settling in her chest and making her limbs feel sluggish. For a second Madara couldn’t think of a single thing to say, because Hashirama was so beautiful that her tongue tied up and her brain stalled momentarily in her head.

Madara reached up instead, quietly, working Hashirama’s hair out of its loose ponytail, so she could run her fingers through the soft strands and pull Hashirama down closer to her for a sloppy, tired kiss.

“I think,” Hashirama said against her mouth, sounding just as breathless as Madara felt, “that we’ve done enough work for tonight.” Her hands swept down Madara’s chest, so light that she could barely feel it through the old armor, before settling on her waist, over the leather straps.

“Yeah,” Madara replied. She couldn’t string any other words together, her thoughts were so mixed up, a mess of warmth and want. So she pressed forward with rough kiss that left her lips feeling bruised, and Hashirama let out a lovely sigh as she pulled Madara to her feet and led her to the door.

* * *

There were days when Madara realized that she couldn’t be sure that she would ever be entirely comfortable with her own body. Days when frustration uncurled in her chest, pulsating and angry, and she felt bile rising her in throat, making her unsettled, queasy. It was a familiar feeling, being so unbalanced, but not something she was entirely used to even after years of it.

Distantly, like someone else was moving her body for her, Madara would slip into an overly large shirt and a pair of loose-legged pants that made her appear more formless than human. Armor was too bulky and loud for leaving the village unnoticed. And then she made her way into the woods, to deal with the gnawing ache until it faded into the background to be ignored.

Madara had, as Izuna often pointed out, more out of concern than anything, never really learned to handle her frustration in healthy ways. Hashirama liked to say that crying was good, comforting sometimes, but it only left her with puffy red eyes and a sickening sense of embarrassment. And Madara wasn’t inclined to believe her anyways; the sight of Hashirama crying, choked up and sniffling, left her feeling almost hollow in the pit of her stomach.

The hard blow stung, and she clenched her fist tighter against the tree before pulling her hand back, and striking it again, even harder this time. A thick coating of chakra would help ease the pain, but Madara enjoyed it, as well as the brief feeling of joy that it accompanied.

Maybe it was a little absurd, to go into the woods and punch a tree of all things when she felt like this, but her muscles rolled pleasantly with every strike. She liked the way her scars, white and pink and scattered over almost every inch of her body, looked when she moved, bare-knuckled and flexing.

Madara poured her discomfort into her fists, and with every solid blow against the bark, it seeped out of her, until she was left with nothing but aching arms and a startlingly sharp pain in her hands, and her body felt like it was hers again, and not a stranger’s.

Panting heavily, she collapsed onto her back and blinked blearily up at the sun. The dirt, warm from the afternoon air, clung to her sweaty skin. She held up a hand above her head, partially blocking the light. Her knuckles were bleeding sluggishly, and bits of bark stuck to the tacky and broken skin, but the pain hardly registered, even when she wiggled her fingers cautiously to work out the numbness.

“She won’t be pleased,” Madara mumbled hoarsely. Her throat was raw and scratchy as if she had been shouting, but the corner of her mouth tugged up anyways. Just thinking about Hashirama made her heartbeat calmer, and her skin seemed better-fitting.

“Who, me?” a voice asked somewhere to the right of her head, and Madara tilted her head, cheek brushing against the grass, to see Hashirama leaning over with a pained expression on her face.

“Who else?” Madara asked, and she couldn’t keep the pleasure out of her voice even if she tried. She stretched out her hand, waving it lazily until Hashirama grasped it between both of her own, calloused and gentle. 

Madara let her eyelids droop closed as Hashirama swept a thumb over her knuckles, brushing out most of the bark and dirt and smearing a thin layer of blood on her burning skin. “I wish you would tell me when you come out here,” Hashirama said softly, sadly, and her breath was warm on Madara’s hand. She pressed a light kiss to her fingers.

“I know,” Madara said. She let out a low sigh. “I needed to be alone for a while.”

“I know,” Hashirama echoed. She settled onto the ground next to Madara, legs drawn up underneath herself, still holding onto Madara’s hand. “Do you want me to heal this?” she asked, pulsing her chakra to punctuate her question, soothing and cool. The question had a resigned edge to it, like she knew the answer but needed to ask for it anyways.

“No. I like the scars. They’re mine,” Madara whispered, and she could barely hear her own voice under the light chattering of songbirds overhead. Hashirama’s chakra faded; Madara missed the feeling instantly, but she was so immensely grateful that she intertwined her fingers between Hashirama’s and squeezed tightly. “Thank you,” she added softly.

The grass rustled next to her, and Madara cracked an eye open to see Hashirama stretching out on the ground, lying on her back and staring up at the sun through the swaying leaves. She pressed another kiss to Madara’s hand, on the back and closer to her wrist, and inhaled deeply.

“You’re getting your robes dirty,” Madara pointed out. She closed her eye again, letting the sounds of Hashirama’s soft breathing and wind rustling through the forest around them fill her senses instead.

Hashirama laughed lightly, and even though the strain wasn’t entirely gone from her voice, she sounded less tightly coiled than she did a few moments before. “Who cares?” she asked, lips tracing her words on Madara’s hand.

Madara exhaled, and all of the residual tension in her bones rushed out of her. Being with Hashirama made Madara’s skin feel like her own. She made everything easier, from breathing to simply existing, because Hashirama sang praises about her and filled her with a naked happiness, and she finally, finally loved her back after years of Madara wanting her so badly that her chest ached.

They stayed together on the ground, quiet and languid in the grass, until the air cooled as the sun began to set behind the trees, with their hands tangled tightly in the space between them. It was a long time before Hashirama mumbled a soft, “Come on,” and moved to sit up.

“I’m starving,” she said, leaning over Madara now, so that her long hair pooled on the ground around her and her faced blocked out the weak evening light entirely. “Izuna told me about a new place near the academy construction. Let’s go there.”

Blearily, Madara blinked her eyes open, and before she could say anything, Hashirama leaned down fully to kiss her. Her lips were full and warm, and pressed against her own, light as feathers, Madara felt like, maybe, this was all she really needed in her life. 

* * *

Madara, when she wasn’t off on a mission or trying not to snap during an advisor’s meeting, spent her afternoons with her raptor in the forests around Konoha. The Uchiha were known for their strong connection to birds. Summoning contracts were common; Madara herself had one with the mountain eagles, and her brother made a contract with hawks.

Her mother introduced her to falconry at a young age, taking Madara out on hunts by the river with Haru. The bear-hawk could fell small deer with ease, but he loved Madara’s mother and always returned to her gloved hand with a sharp whistle.

The forest was quiet except for the crunch of leaves and branches below Madara’s feet, and the soft ringing of bells as her raptor gracefully flew from tree to tree. All of the birds Madara had ever flown, Rin was by far the smallest, a clever little sparrowhawk that imprinted on her with almost immediately.

Before, Madara had partnered mostly with goshawks and, once, a particularly viscous golden eagle who left her within the season during a hunt; she had found the bells hours later in a nearby clearing, along with the thin strip of leather the bird had ripped off her feet.

But Rin, with her sharp yellow eyes, her cold personality that only slightly softened when she perched lightly on Madara’s deer-hide glove, was her pride and joy like no other raptor before her.

There was the sound of flapping wings, and then Rin landed on her left hand again, fixing Madara with a wide-eyed look before glancing at the brush in front of them carefully. Rin chattered, high-pitched and shrill, and Madara cooed back reflexively.

“It’s only been an hour,” Madara pointed out with a smirk. Predictably, Rin squeezed her fingers tightly, a gentle warning, talons pressing into Madara’s skin through the supple leather, and took flight again.

“You’re so impatient sometimes,” Madara murmured. Overhead, Rin whirled in a tight circle, and the silver bells on her ankles rang out loudly.

Most hawkers shied away from using sparrowhawks. Too small and delicate, too easily killed by larger raptors in the air, with personalities that made them difficult to train. Rin had an arrogance that didn’t match her small stature, and she only allowed Madara to fly her. Izuna tried to stand near Madara, once, in the weathering yard by the clan mews, and Rin gouged into his finger deeply for it.

The chirp of songbirds pulled Madara from her thoughts, and she looked up to see Rin swooping down from a high branch, and raised her hand. “I hear them,” Madara said, softly, at the bird’s angry stare, and Rin shuffled impatiently until Madara set off in the right direction of the singing sparrows.

The forest, dappled with the cool afternoon sunlight, gave way to a clearing of winter wildflowers, and Madara paused at the edge of the trees. Rin became very still on her wrist, and looked over the tiny hollow with watchful eyes.

Madara hummed in the back of her throat, acknowledgment for her partner, and Rin took off from her hand and rose to a high branch.

Hunting left Madara’s mind delightfully blank; it made a calm settle in her heart, and radiate out with every steady beat until she felt like she shared a mind with her hawk, concerned only with watching the forest for something to catch.

They waited together, quietly, until the sun shifted lower in the sky, and a group of sparrows finally emerged from the brush, singing a lilting song as they rose into the air.

Madara blinked, and suddenly Rin was in front of her in a flash of gray and white feathers, launched into the air from her perch with an incredible speed. She was silent except for the sound of bells trailing after her, and when she slammed into a deep brown sparrow, violent and beautiful, it didn’t make a sound before her talons had already sunken into its chest.

The other sparrows chirped wildly, spreading out in the air for safety, but Rin paid them no mind as she spread her small wings out around her to hide her catch from the world. She didn’t look up from the ground, either, as Madara strolled over, gloved arm extended.

Madara whistled, coaxing the raptor back onto her hand before Rin could eat much of the sparrow, and gave her a strip of meat from a pouch on her belt. Rin ripped into it immediately, and she let Madara take her capture without a fuss.

“Good job,” Madara crooned, and Rin let her carefully brush her hand over the fluttering feathers of the bird’s wings. The air felt noticeably cooler around them. Madara looked up at the sun, then tilted her head to face home, back to the village some miles behind them, where Hashirama was waiting.

“Well,” Madara said, as Rin shifted restlessly on her fist, finished with her meal and obviously anxious for another flight. “We could try to find something else for you to hunt, I suppose, on our walk back,” and Rin chirped happily at her.

* * *

Madara woke slowly, cheeks warm and flushed with sleep, to a pitch black room, hours before dawn. She had always been an early riser, with the sunlight creeping in from the window, while Hashirama continued to sleep on and on until dragged from bed, content to be tangled in their mess of sheets, but never this early.

But aside from her annoyance, her head felt pleasantly hazy. The windows were open, letting in a cool breeze, and Hashirama was pressed so closely against her back that it felt like summer again.

She should feel trapped, laying on her side with Hashirama’s long arms wrapped tightly around her, their legs brushing together under the sheets. She almost did; old habits born from a lifetime of fighting died hard. But the sense of stillness that settled over her, peaceful and light, made it easier to swallow what should taste bitter. Hashirama had always coaxed the best out of her, and Madara would be lying if she said she didn’t love the feeling of Hashirama’s hand splayed on her bare stomach, the warmth of Hashirama’s even breathing on her shoulder.

Madara wasn’t surprised by how much she wanted this, the tenderness and closeness between them. Even if Hashirama only realized it recently, she had been in love for years. She wasn’t good at being calm, but she could try to learn, just to keep this.

Not that she was capable of being calm, if she were being honest with herself, but the sentiment of her sappy thoughts was there all the same. Hashirama seemed to like that Madara was burning under the surface at all times, anyway.

Sighing lowly, Madara tipped her head back and moved her legs until the backs of her knees fit better against Hashirama’s. She wasn’t good with words, but she could probably write pages on how much she loved the slope of Hashirama’s calves, or her steady hands, or the shape of her lips when she smiled so widely that her eyes crinkled shut.

Over the soft hum of bugs outside the window, Hashirama made a discontented whine, and Madara could feel Hashirama’s mouth twist into a frown against her shoulder.

“Did I wake you?” Madara asked, soft. She tilted her head slightly, and her hair moved roughly against her skin, thrown over her neck to her front and away from Hashirama’s face. A knotted mess again, but maybe Hashirama could brush it later, when it was a more reasonable hour.

“Yes,” Hashirama replied, just as quietly, her voice rough and groggy from sleep. Her lips brushed against Madara’s shoulder, damp and curling into a wide smile. “But I don’t mind. I was dreaming about you anyways.”

Madara shifted and rolled her eyes. “Really,’ she said flatly, less of a question and more of an exasperated statement. The corners of her mouth tugged up, anyways.

“Might as well see you in person,” Hashirama continued, teasing, as if Madara hadn’t said anything. Her lips drew the words into Madara’s skin. She kissed her shoulder, then continued, thoughtful, “But you’re nicer in my dreams. Less prickly.”

“I should sleep in my own home,” Madara sighed. “You’re too much of a bother to deal with.”

“You’d miss me,” Hashirama insisted. She shifted, then pressed a kiss to Madara’s back, right below her neck, giggling to herself when Madara’s hair tickled at her nose.

Madara laughed. “Maybe,” she admitted. “But probably not.” Absently, she tapped at Hashirama’s fingers, pressed against her stomach, before weaving her own fingers between them.

“I would just sleep over there, and I don’t think Izuna would appreciate that.” The feeling of Hashirama’s lips as she spoke, gentle against her spine, made Madara’s mouth curve with delight.

Slowly, she rolled over so that she and Hashirama were face to face. The shifting of fabric seemed overly loud between them, and the sheets scratched at her bare legs as she tried to reposition without accidentally elbowing Hashirama in the face.

“No,” Madara said. She couldn’t meet Hashirama’s eyes in the darkness of their room, but she tried to catch them all the same. “I don’t think he would.”

“Stay here with me, then,” Hashirama said, and she trailed a hand on the swell of Madara’s hips, callouses against old knotted scars, and wove the other through her mess of dark hair. “Obviously,” she added after a moment, because she couldn’t just let the moment be.

Overwhelmed with a soft affection, Madara put both her hands on Hashirama’s neck, thumbs stroking at her jawline, and gave her a slow, lingering kiss that left her breathless and lightheaded. Hashirama huffed a laugh into her mouth, then moved so that her head was pressed against Madara’s chest.

“Wonderful as this is,” Hashirama sighed. “I should actually rest. I don’t want to pass out during my meetings tomorrow.”

Madara wrapped her arms around her as Hashirama nuzzled closer, carding fingers through her silky hair, and hummed instead of answering. 

“Wake me so I don’t oversleep,” Hashirama added, muffled against the worn fabric of Madara’s shirt, and she slid an arm around Madara’s waist, resting a palm at the small of her back.

“Yes,” Madara said, distantly, so unbelievably taken with the woman in her arms that her throat ached and her heart felt like it might burst right out of her chest. She listened to Hashirama’s breathing even out again, and lightly rubbed circles between her shoulders until pale morning light slipped into the room.


End file.
